It’s not hard to see where a space station fits into a
Traveller campaign—at the very least, they
can represent the orbital component of a starport, and starports are at
the heart of travelling, second only to the starships they serve. But
they can be more than just filling stations and mini-malls along an
interstellar highway—they can be destinations in and of themselves, with
vibrant communities and attractions of their own. They can be one of
several economic engines in a star system. They can be centers of
research or learning or manufacture. The limits are, in reality, only
your imagination.

This book allows you to start with that imagination, and flesh it out
into something that “feels right” for your
Traveller campaign. It starts with the rules for constructing a
space station, outlining the various needs for the station, much like
the rules for constructing starships. In fact, the two sequences are
parallel, with the differences being called out (e.g., because a station
doesn’t move as much as a starship, the hull need not be as strong;
stations don’t need jump drives; stations often can be much larger than
even the largest capital ships, etc.). There isn’t the wide variety of
hull configurations called out as in starship construction; instead, the
important decision for a space station hull is whether it will be a
spin-gravity structure or an artificial-gravity structure, with a
spin-gravity structure being more limited as to configuration (but
available at lower TLs).

It should be noted that this book does not discuss the differences—if
any—between starports and space stations, and, unlike
Starports (focussed on the Third Imperium
setting), this supplement is strictly generic, not tied to any published
setting.

After the basics have been determined in the first chapter, the
station has to be equipped for its function, whether that function is to
act as a filling station and mini-mall for starships passing through, to
act as a refining platform for resource extraction in the inner or outer
system, to defend the mainworld—or a critical outpost—against marauders
from out-system, to probe the depth of space, or of one of the systems
worlds, in pursuit of new knowledge, or whatever. The second chapter
allows you to equip the station for any of these purposes, and generally
offers multiple options for a given function, allowing customization of
the station.

Now that you have your station, the next chapter talks about
operating it—and attacking it; space stations are going to be relatively
high-value targets in a star system. This section does touch on the
differences between space stations and starports, but only to the extent
that one must interpret some of the characteristics slightly
differently. The emphasis in this chapter is on developing the overview
of the operational characteristics, not on actually running the station
from day to day.

The next chapter widens the scope: instead of focussing on a single
station, it discusses generating an overview of the set of space
stations one might find in a system, at the equivalent of a UWP
level—that is, the details of a station are not generated, just the
basics of how many stations of a type are present, and what those types
are. Although some of the discussion uses terminology that hearkens back
to the Third Imperium setting, there’s no actual tie to that setting.

The next chapter returns to the single-station scope, but now
focusses on the context—a space station doesn’t exist in a vacuum (well,
yes, it does, but that’s just a physical vacuum—I’m now talking about an
economic/social vacuum for it to not exist in). More specifically, this
focusses on building a space station and having it be a real place, with
a need to bring in a profit, rather than merely being a flat for the
player-characters to act in front of. It’s pretty clear from this
chapter that while there can be a primary reason for a station’s
existence, secondary purposes will be common, and such factors as crew
skill and efficiency will play a part in defining the profitability of
the station.

One important function that a space station can serve is as a
shipyard. The next chapter discusses this, in terms of both constructing
to contract and speculative construction. Constructing to contract is
given as the more reliable way to realize income from constructing
spacecraft and starships, but speculative construction is potentially
more lucrative. On the other hand, it’s coupled with higher risk; what
do you do with the starship that you’ve constructed on spec but now
can’t find a buyer for? At least with contract construction, you’ve got
a buyer lined up before the first structural member of the hull is set
in place…

Putting it all together isn’t always easy. The next chapter presents
an example, in the Agave system. A history of the system is presented,
including some NPC patron encounters and the adventures they can send
the PCs on. Space stations of all types play roles in the adventures,
and give the players a good look at what a space station is and does in
an actual setting. The system setting is not tied to the Third Imperium
setting, so can be used in pretty much any campaign.

Finally, comprising half the book, is a set of pre-generated space
stations of various types, with stat sheets and at least partial deck
plans for each. The plans are, unfortunately, in bitmap format, so while
they can be enlarged to try to get a better look at detail, there are
limits beyond which they’ll simply become fuzzy. Fortunately, you can
zoom in enough to identify components and staterooms—but not enough to
make it worthwhile printing them out to use as miniatures maps.

Overall, the PDF is probably a better value than the print
edition—but if you're not going to be doing space-station-centric
adventures, there are certainly better things to spend your money on.